Sunday, May 17, 2009

I recently reviewed the following film for Video Lib-rarian, and thought the results were worth sharing.

PHILIPPE GARREl x 2: I CAN NO LONGER HEAR THE GUITAR and EMERGENCY KISSES[***1/2]

In Philippe Garrel, Artiste, the made-for-TV profile thataccompanies this set, the writer/director describes cine-ma as "a way to survive." Until the release of 2005's Reg-ular Lovers, starring his son Louis, Garrel was one ofFrance's best kept secrets. This double-disc collectionoffers two key titles from his intimate filmography.

In 1991's I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar, Garrel provid-es an impressionistic overview of his 10-year affair with VelvetUnderground vocalist Nico, who appears in several of his earlyfilms. Influenced by life, literature, and dreams, Garrel purpose-fully blurs the timeline, initially depicting a romantic Positanoidyll between Gérard (Benoît Régent, Three Colors: Blue) andMarianne (Johanna ter Steege, The Vanishing) until her jealou-sy and heroin addiction become too much to take, though Gér-ard's friendship with fellow Parisian Martin (Yann Colette,who is blind in one eye) helps to ease the burden.

Made two years before, Emergency Kisses ups the antethrough the inclusion of the extended Garrel clan. The decision offilmmaker Mathieu (Garrel) to cast Minouchette (Anémone) in afilm instead of wife Jeanne (real-life spouse Brigitte Sy) threatensto tear their union asunder. Whereas a friend provides the sup-port in Guitar, Garrel's father, Maurice, assumes that role in Kiss-es, while a blond Louis plays his rambunctious six-year-old son.

Other supplements include an essay from The New Yorker'sRichard Brody, the French trailer for Regular Lovers, lobbycards, and press-book excerpts, including testimony from Jean-Luc Godard, who proclaims Garrel's work "eternal." A strong re-commendation, especially for fans of Godard and John Cassavetes.

Endnote: Slightly revised from the original text. Incidentally,Garrel's full quote reads: cinema is "a way to survive if you thinkyou're different...when you're young." But is he really that funda-mentally different from anyone else? I mean, he's an artist, he'sfrom an artistic family, but he's still just a human being. Afterwatching these two films, I'm still not sure exactly what he means,but I will say that he doesn't go easy on his doppelgängers, thoughGérard in Guitar does grow up a bit by the end, and I would as-sume Garrel considers that a positive development. Also, he de-scribes Godard as "the master I've chosen." Image from WNYC.

The problem lies not with the quality of the material—though I could do without the squealing guitar on Owsley tribute "Dr. Al-bert"—but that too many musicians born around the same time are doing the same thing. These six tracks pirouette along the edges of goth and electro-pop, employing outsized drums and minor chords. While I hardly think Springsteen was predictingthe Jersey lads, the phrase "Dancing in the Dark" comes to mind.

Jeff Who?, self-titled, Bad Taste Records

This Reykjavik quintet rolls from the hard to the soft. Sometimes they sound like ELO, sometimes like the missing link between disco and hair metal. Suffice to say they have no fear of the cheese, and will do whatever it takes to make a song work, hence the un-ironic use of cowbell on "The Great Escape" (and if you're gonna use Will Ferrell's favorite instrument, by all means: do like he does, and set the smirk aside). I often take unoriginal and unmemorable acts to task, and after two listens, I'm not so sure Jeff Who? dodges those fates as successfully as they could, but their second disc guarantees a good time, and that's far easier said than done.

Bob Harp, Collecting Dust, self-released[7/21/09]

On the follow-up to Good Misery, this San Francisco trou-badour sings, strums, and plays the harmonica like Bob Dy-lan, circa The Basement Tapes (he even borrows the frog-in-his-throat from "Lay Lady Lay"). That doesn't meanCollecting Dust sounds like a carbon copy, though theman's influence is keenly felt, right down to the high-pit-ched "Hurricane" violin on "One Last Night in Califor-nia." I like Dylan, but I don't love him, and I feel thesame way about Harp. He needs to emerge fromZimmy's long shadow into his own light.

Michael Pearsall sings lyrics like "We hope and pray that love willfind a way" with a straight face, probably because he really meansit, but these painfully earnest piano-rockers aren't doing anythingthe Fray hasn't already done. They also thank stage-sharers BonJovi and Third Eye Blind in the liner notes and borrow the Edge'swaterfall-guitar trick. The DC quartet's second self-released ef-fort serves as a handy reminder that "indie" is just a word.

J.A.C.K., Deletist, Yabyum Records [6/16/09]

"A thunderous mountain of sound."-- Deli Magazine

Ignore the name and the occasionally dunderheaded lyrics—"thewhole world is controlled by assholes"—and enjoy the screaming.Whether it's more a matter of skill or luck, a good scream can be abeautiful thing. Too high, and a man risks sounding like a castrato;too low and the cookie monster effect kicks in. Scott Holland's gotthe balance right. Since J.A.C.K.'s moniker recalls the idioticradio format, I expected little from Deletist, but these NewYorkers have got it going on. Recommended to fans of SubPop-era Soundgarden and the Laughing Hyenas.

Unlike the last N.I.M.I.C. compilation, which I review-ed in 2008, this one leaves bigger names like Snow Patrol, Neil Hannon, and David Holmes behind, but Sounds of the City still aims to promote Northern Ireland's music scene, and there's something for most listeners here, like the driving electro-pop of Skibunny's "UpDown" and the gentle country of Anthony Toner's "Sailortown," which references Van Morrison ("brown eyed girl") and Thin Liz-zy ("whiskey in the jar"). If none of the 14 tracks set my ears on fire, nor did I encounter anything likely to embarrass the folks from the North and those of us rooting for their success.

Monday, May 04, 2009

"Feel So Sad" is another Spiritualized single, an original this time, that doesn't show up on Lazer Guided Melodies. The first version debuted on Recurring, the final Spacemen platter. Their extension of that Simon and Garfunkel-on-downers-as-recorded-in-a-gothic-cathedral epic clocks in at over 13 minutes. I can un-derstand why he didn't include it, however, as Pierce has opted to emphasize fairly concise pop structures over the free-floating, sometimes-drummerless jams for which the 3 were best known.

From 1990-91, Spiritualized released several other seven-in-ches in the UK: "I Want You," "Smiles," and "Sway," all of which found a place on the new disc. Not exactly drone-fests, they're still more abstract and less instantly accessible than the rest.

According to Pierce, it was "more constructed" than the other tracks. "It was made out of five or six different riffs and very minimal stuff that creat-es something that sounds more complicated than it actually is. That was one on the album that was very de-finitely orchestrated in the same way as "Feel So Sad."

[I'm assuming the "it" refers to "Sway," but a few words appear to have disappeared from the original text, so it's hard to say for sure.]

Pierce notes that many songs date back to his Spacemen days, but that he approached them differently from the ones he wrote for that band. "I didn't try to chase a finished sound; I didn't ev-en want to know how they were going to turn out. In the Space-men, it was more like I knew what it should sound like, and tried to get that down onto tape, which ended—not disappointingly—but they never matched the sound in my head. With the stuff now, I didn't want to chase any finished thing, so everybody basically had free reign to do whatever they wanted. Now, we're not even starting with a song basis. We're just doing what we want, and everybody's in tune with what sounds cool anyway. The new stuff usually starts as a more freeform thing, like the live set. We're continuing to write that way at the moment."

Regarding the live show, he explains that, "The album is more like the spine of what we're doing. I don't think we'll reach a stage where the album will become old material or we're gonna prog-ress on from that, because it's been made to be the backbone of what we work on now. So when we play live we don't try to rep-licate the album, we use it as a springboard to work on other stuff. We plan to start touring around September, and we'll probably come to the States around that time. Five members [will come], and I think we'll be able to bring a horn section."

Spiritualized - "Sway"Another important distinction between Spiritualized and Spacemen 3: horns (trumpets and saxophone), woodwinds (flute), and strings (cello and violin) all play a bigger part in the new project than they did in the parent band, which is to say: hardly at all. Incidentally, Spiritualized's tour is-n't likely to include Seattle, according to the folks at RCA.

As far as additional future plans, Jason says, "We've recorded another single called 'Medication,' which will be released in En-gland in about a month's time with a Peel Session we did." Also, "Dean's band, Luna*, are going to do some stuff with Spiritua-lized, and rather than me just guesting on his album, we're gonna get the two bands to play on one song. We may do it like we'd do one and send it to [them to] complete and vice versa."

* Dean Wareham, ex-Galaxie 500, current Dean & Britta

Aside from the Troggs, VU, J.J. Cale, the Beach Boys, and Sui-cide, Pierce likes to relax in Rugby to the sounds of the Remains and the Silver Apples, "a pretty cool band who pre-date Suicide. They were doing the same kind of stuff as a lot of the experimen-tal electronic bands, but they were doing it in the '60s. One guy playing keyboards and one guy who drums and sings." And aside from MBV and Galaxie 500/Luna, more contemporary favorit-es include Yo La Tengo, whom he describes as "something else," adding, "their last record is great," and Mercury Rev, who've "just done some shows in England that are probably the best shows I've seen for years. Really, really something else."Ritter interviewed Pierce by phone while he was in New York doing press and publicity for Lazer Guided Melodies in ear-ly June. Pierce and Sonic Boom recently joined Luna on stage during a jaunt to the UK, so maybe those two are at least on speaking terms again. For Spacemen 3 completists, Sonic's new Spectrum release, Soul Kiss, has just been released by Britain's Silvertone in a limited edition translucent "jelly pack," much like the infamous Slayer "blood pack." RCA will be issuing it Stateside in September without the special packaging. Having already heard the import, I can safely that it's not too hard to figure out who was the spaciest of the Spacemen 3. Hint: It wasn't Jason Pierce.

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Get Spiritualized: an Introduction to Jason PierceInterview by Rex Ritter, story by Kathleen C. Fennessy

As a follow-up to my 1991 interview with Sonic Boom, here's a newly revised version of a piece about Pierce, Sonic's ex-partner in crime. Originally subtitled "An Interview with," I've changed it to "An Introduction to," since there isn't a whole lot of interview here. It worked like this: I came up with a list of questions, Ritter put them to Pierce, and I penned the resulting article, which appeared in Hype in '92.A founding member of Jessamine and Fontanelle, singer/songwriter/guitarist Ritter would go on to collaborate with Sonic's Spectrum.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

"Live they kinda use volume as a drug."-- Pierce on My Bloody Valentine

Chances are, if you were a Spacemen 3 fan, you already know about Spiritualized. If not: Jason "Spaceman" Pier-ce formed the latter while the former was in the midst of its death throes, owing to major personality clash-es between Pierce and Dave "Sonic Boom" Kember.

Chances are also good that if you liked the mothership outfit, you'll feel the same way about Pierce's more streamlined, but not radi-cally different "melody thing" (as opposed to the 3's drone thing). If you weren't hip to the group and their four full-length releas-es of prime psychedelic ooze, please allow me to introduce you to Mr. Pierce. If you dig his stuff, you just might dig it, too, ya dig?

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****Lazer Guided Melodies is the title of Spiritualized's de-but, available on Dedicated Records in the United Kingdom andRCA in the United States. It's already met with a flurry of posi-tive critical acclaim and high indie chart numbers in Britain.

In America, it's been doing quite well on the college charts, butsomehow I doubt it's gonna rocket into the commercial strato-sphere of our fine land, seeing as how they eschew paisley out-fits, puddin'-bowl haircuts, shuffling dance beats, heavy-dutywah-wah guitar leads, or any of the other gimmicks neo-psych-edelic acts have employed to attract attention in recent years.

Spiritualized - "Anyway That You Want Me"

Nope! Spiritualized offer up some pretty un-trendysounds, much as the 'men did in their heyday. Althoughyou could compare them to other UK shoegaze acts likethe Jesus & Mary Chain, MBV, and Slowdive, they reallydo have their own thing going on, despite the fact that theyalso fail to shout and leap about on stage. Their music isn'tas heavily Sonic Youth-influenced as the aforemention-ed trio; they simply aren't as atonal or experimental.

The quartet's first sonic blast was the "Anyway That YouWant Me" single, released while the Spacemen were still a happening concern. As with the Fluid's "Our Love Will StillBe There," it's another excellent example of a fine Troggs' tune made transcendentally better. (See also: Alex Chilton's "With a Girl Like You." Damn! Reg and the boys wrote some stunners.)

For some reason, this amaz-ing track doesn't appear onthe new album. However, thepowers that be at RCA saythat it'll make an appearancelater this year as a B-side.

Another notable cover which fails to materialize on thelong-player istheir take on the early and obscure Lou Reed composition "Why Don't You Smile Now," which wasn't record-ed, at the time, by the Rock 'n' Roll Animal himself (you can find the rather goofy, highly-dated original version on the pre-Peel Slowly and See VU box set—and good luck finding that!).

Pierce's sweet and fuzzy interpretation of J.J. Cale's "They Call Me the Breeze," re-titled "Run," represents one non-original that does appear on Lazer (Cale gets a co-writing credit). In a different time and place, the rollicking drum-driven ditty would've become a hit.

Endnote:I'm saddened that my glow-in-the-dark "Lazer" t-shirtwent missing somewhere over the years, although I've stillgot the subway-sized poster tucked away in the recesses of mycloset.Images from NRK Lydverket, Spacelab, and Weblo.com.

About Me

I write about popular music and film and the relationship between the two. I'm Irish on one side, Italian on the other—British on both. I was born in Connecticut (Far From Heaven), raised in Alaska (Northern Exposure), and I've lived in Seattle, WA (Trouble in Mind) since 1988.